


in different lights

by aertisu



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Time Jump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 02:36:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18512161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aertisu/pseuds/aertisu
Summary: Steve and Tony have a discussion about the upcoming events. It's emotional and sappy and a little sad. Contains no direct spoilers for Endgame.or!how love makes people stronger and flexible and stupid.





	in different lights

**Author's Note:**

> it's been almost ten years since i wrote marvel fic so please be kind to me as i stretch my old legs

When Steve makes up his mind it's impossible to move him. He plants his feet, digs in his heels, and is arrogant enough to expect the world to move around him. It's no different now just because the world has ended. Over the last ten years, Tony hasn't minded this character flaw all too much. Time has a way of softening sharp edges and scarring over old wounds. 

Love does that too.  It makes people stronger and flexible and stupid. 

Tony's always been very, very stupid for Steve Rogers. Furious and needy and jealous and frustrated, and everything, everything a person can feel for another person, Tony has felt it for him. All of that, and always stupid. It's always been complicated.

The stories had kept coming long after Tony stopped wanting to hear them. How Captain America laid on a grenade. Flew a plane into the ocean. And in between those two, countless other brave, reckless things to fill up history books and museums. He'd seemed so big when Tony was small. The breadth of his shoulders, the strong cut of his jaw, staring back from Howard's photographs and Tony's posters with big, kind-looking eyes. 

And then he'd met him. Not through newsreels, but Captain America real in front of him. Seeming smaller, somehow, but taking up more space than Tony would have guessed. Then he'd witnessed it all firsthand. How he would throw himself on the grenade again, and again, and again, and now he wants to do it one more time. Maybe for the last time. 

As if his life is so cheap. 

Someone was always going to have to wear the gauntlet. If they get the stones, if they can pull off the biggest, most time-travely heists ever, someone would have to wield it. Probably that person would have to die for it.

"But you won't remember," Steve says again, and Tony hates him. Red-hot in a way he hasn't felt in years. "It'll go right back to how it was. And you'll be okay. You -," 

"Says who? You?" 

Steve leans closer, bumps their knees together as he reaches to brush his curled fingers against Tony's abdomen. 

There's always been sadness in Steve, even before the end of everything, but it's etched much deeper now. Carves into the corners of his eyes and around his mouth and the center of his brow. Over the last years, Tony has tried on endless, sleepless nights, to smooth the lines away with his thumb. Stroking over Steve's warm, flushed pink skin. 

"Yes." The silence is the span of five deep, steadying breaths. Tony counts them, watching Steve's chest rise and fall. "You were getting married." 

Steve Rogers and Captain America are not always the same person. Steve used to be small, so thin and sickly a strong breeze could knock him over, and he still sees himself that way most of the time. He curls in on himself, folds up, like if he tried hard enough he could be overlooked. It's wild, whenever Tony thinks about it, because even before the serum, Steve was never really small. Tony knew that from the get-go; no bottle could make Captain America Steve, and Steve was the part that mattered. He'd read the notes, heard the stories, he knew. 

He keeps speaking as Tony stands and begins to pace. His voice is softer than it has any right to be. That self-sacrificing tone that Tony hates. Filled with resignation and care and stubbornness. 

"When time resets you'll have Pepper back. And Happy. And - Peter. You'll get everyone back. You won't remember this, and you can't miss what you can't remember. You couldn’t stand me then. You'll just -" 

Every part of Tony stills except his racing heart. His eyes dart around the room, from their duffel bags still by the door, the warmth of the unmade bed, to big, floor to ceiling windows and the Wakandian sunset that feels closer than it should be, orange and pink and a deep purple that gives way to the rest of the universe. What's left of it. 

"I can't."  

It's only two words, but they're pulled out of him painfully. Catch in his chest and then his throat. Steve takes them along with Tony's wrist, gently holds him until his body reboots. Until he's moving back into Steve's space. 

"Please, Tony. Please let me do this without a fight." 

His eyes are so big and blue. Like the first suit Tony designed for him, like the sky, clear right to the horizon, when he tested the first real Iron Man armor, and an ocean that reaches up to touch it, bright and alive in the spring. Funny he used to think Steve was cold, all snow and ice. 

"We don't know if it'll kill you in the past," Tony says. He steps back until Steve's hand drops away from his wrist. "We don't know anything." 

"That's why I'm going to -," 

"I can't lose you. I fucking refuse to lose you, Cap. Do you understand?" Steve's eyes are on him, seeing too much of him, always seeing so much of him until Tony feels raw and vulnerable. "It's not on the table. 'We don't trade lives.' Your words, I believe. Funny how you never think it applies to yours." 

They found each other in increments. Some of them so small Tony hadn't realized he was moving until they were pressed together. There was no surprise in it, really, it felt like a fixed point. Even though Tony knew it wasn't. How many of those futures Strange saw had Tony died in? Maybe all of them except the one they’re in. He had never come home in those realities. How many of them had Steve Rogers given up in? He'd failed in all of them. 

Together. All of this only worked if they were together. 

"Dying is the probable outcome of wearing that thing, Tony. And I'm the only one who can do it." 

So sure. So arrogant. So fucking stubborn.

"Bullshit." 

Steve sighs, squares his shoulders as he looks up at him, and says, "I'm the only one who should wear it." 

"According to whom, exactly?" 

He's trying to make himself small again, from one moment to the next. Captain America versus Steve Rogers. It seems unfair they've both had to fight wars inside themselves too. No peace. No rest. 

"Tony-," his voice is low, sounds strained, brittle. "Everyone has something back there. All of you." 

A sigh pushes out of him as he sits back down, knocking his shoulder and knee against Steve's. His chest aches in a familiar way when Steve takes his hand, turns it around in his own, brushing his thumb over the lines of his palm, the calluses under his knuckles. That's just the way he touches Tony. Always an apology and a promise and a bit of a prayer. 

"Partners, lives, a purpose beyond… All I had then was the fight. I was tired. I'm tired now. Please just be okay with this."

There's a dryness that starts in Tony's mouth and runs down his throat, makes his stomach turn, and that sick feeling spreads like poison back up into his chest. When Steve wraps his arms around him, pulling Tony forward onto the bed, he goes without protest. Allows himself to be tucked against Steve's body, under his arm, chest-to-chest, foreheads knocking together carefully, moving and breathing and existing in tandem. A rhythm it took them almost twenty years to find.

There's no way he can give Steve what he wants. It's unfair of him to even ask this of Tony. Someone was always going to have to wear the gauntlet, he knows that, and it's selfish to not want it to be Steve but he doesn't care. They've given enough, over and over again, every piece they could. Cutting parts of themselves off, inch by inch, and Tony is tired. 

It's going to happen - Tony can't stop him, and anyway, he doesn't have an argument Steve will listen to. There's a chance whoever wears it will die. Steve's never going to let anyone else put it on. He always lies on the grenade. 

"I kept the phone." 

Steve laughs, a husky, breathy thing against Tony's shoulder. "Yeah. Bruce called, remember?" 

"I mean -," Tony sighs. 

He's kept this to himself for ten years and it feels silly to have done so now. The memory of Steve on his knees still feels fresh, eight years ago by now, his arms wrapped around Tony's body, face pressed to his stomach. He'd been broken and crying and so sorry - not for all of it, but for enough. For the things that mattered. 

"Everyday," he says. "Had to have it. I had to feel it in my pocket. If it wasn't there? Full blown panic attack by lunch. What if something happened and I couldn't get a hold of you? What if you needed me and I wasn't there to answer it?" 

Steve tightens his hold, goes to speak, but Tony can't let him.

"You know, Pepper was proud on the days we won. She was proud all the time. Still hated it though. Hated the missions and the suits. It all made her nervous. Scared. It made sense. I gave her a lot to be scared about." 

"Tony." The way Steve says his name is the same way he touches him. "It's a lot to ask of someone. I'm sure she understood." 

That makes him laugh. He touches his fingers to Steve's temple, to the surprising strands of gray there. Tony loves them. Loves that Steve is aging, however slowly. He presses a kiss there. 

"Actually, she didn't. I promised and promised," he cups Steve's jaw, tilts his head to the side to kiss his cheek. "But I couldn't stop building suits. Couldn't stop being Iron Man. I didn't want to stop." 

Steve goes where Tony's hands lead him. His eyes big and watchful and passing no judgement. 

"I hid a lot of things from Pepper when we got back together. The phone was one of them. Didn't want her to see it." Steve makes a tiny sound, painful and questioning. "I didn't want to answer questions about it. I never looked too hard at why. Didn't really need to.

"If I ever hated you, it was because I should have hated you and didn't. I could never, Steve."

It's nothing they haven't already admitted to each other, but Tony understands why Steve's eyes get red and glassy anyway, as if it's the first time he's hearing it. It's the weight of all the lost years between them. It's too heavy. It hurts. 

It washes over them both the way it always does. It suffocates.

"I'd lie awake at night and wish the phone would ring. Just holding it. Wondering if you'd ever forgive me. If you were okay. Sleeping enough. I didn't - I wasn’t sure if we could fix it," he says, all of it in a rush, his arms tight around Tony, pulling him closer, pressing his lips against him. "But I knew I wanted to. So badly.”

"Did you dream?" Tony says, surprising them both. "In the ice." 

Steve pulls back a little, his eyebrows drawing together, and he sighs, "No. It was like - I remember..." 

"You don't have to tell me." 

"It felt like going to sleep, that's all. A dark, dreamless sleep. But quick. As quick as blinking." Steve pressed a quick, chaste kiss to Tony's mouth. "I slept for 70 years to meet you. And these last ten years with you - I - if I could use the stone to go back, I would. After Washington, I'd tell you. Tell you everything. I wouldn't keep a thing from you." 

It's nothing Steve hasn't said before, but maybe it's worth saying again on their last night together like this. Tony always wants to hear it. Likes to imagine what it could have been like if they'd both made better decisions. If Steve had seen him clearly, right from the start, and Tony had been able to see him too. Both of them adrift in a world they couldn't recognize anymore. 

"I'd go back to after Shawarma. Show you my Captain America memorabilia room." 

Steve laughs, and it's accompanied by the sweetest blush. "Stop it," he says, his voice lighter than air. 

"I'm serious," he teases, but means it. What would it have been like, then, to tear down both their walls. 

"I should have let you in," Tony admits. Can see on his face the way that Steve feels it, agrees with him and knows he should have done the same. Can feel it in the press of his lips. "I know you tried, after New York. I saw you Steve. Whether I wanted to or not.”

Steve kisses him again, a dozen presses of his mouth to Tony's lips, his cheek, high on his forehead. He says, "We should have taken care of each other. I'm sorry, Tony." 

It hits him so gently, as if it's always been there, simmering in the back of his head. All this time, a better plan. Not just a way to survive this, but a way to truly fix it. It's crazy, but everything he's learned over the years assures him that it's right. 

He sits up, looks down at Steve Rogers, who he loves with all his broken heart. Who looks up at him in a way that leaves no doubt he feels the same way. That he's always felt it, even if he couldn’t put a name to it. 

"Then why don't we?" 

Steve gives him a long, unblinking stare, his face tight with confusion. 

"You want to do this? You want to wear the stupid glove and make the big play and what? Go back to the snap? Why there? You'll have all the time in the universe, right in your hand. Not just time but  _ reality  _ itself.”

It makes sense. It makes so much sense Tony feels stupid for it taking so long to see it. 

"Where would I...?" 

"Before the Accords," Tony says, and presses a heavy hand to Steve's shoulder. "Before Ultron. Go - let me think. Go -,"

When did he know? He tries to remember, but now the way he feels about Steve feels like it stretches backwards indefinitely. Before he even came out of the ice. It's so deep inside him, lives in his bones, and he doesn't know what to say. 

And then Steve's eyes get bright, that fire in them that's rare nowadays, and he asks, "Does FRIDAY have access to Jarvis' memories? Is there an official record or something like that?" 

Tony nods. 

"FRIDAY?" 

Her voice rings from Tony's phone, clear and loud in the silence of the room.

"Yes, Captain?" 

"When did I tell Jarvis I was in love with Tony? What was the date?" 

It sends a jolt of something from the back of Tony's head to the base of his spine. He knows Steve wanted him, loved him, didn't know how to tell him or even feel it properly. He knows all that. But this is something he didn't know. 

"January 4th, 2014. 3:32am." 

Steve's eyes never stray from Tony's. He tells her, "Tell us what I said." 

It feels like FRIDAY is hesitating, although he's sure she's just accessing her memory files. The silence still sits weighted between them. Every inch between them a thousand miles but still very, very close. 

Finally, she says: "Jarvis inquired about your elevated heart rate. It seems like he was anticipating a panic attack, Cap. You told him you were scared, and confused, and asked him if he could keep secrets. You told him you only just realized you were in love with Mr. Stark. You asked Jarvis to take care of him. Jarvis told you he would, of course. You asked Jarvis to stay with you." 

"Why?" Tony asks. When Steve doesn't answer, he asks FRIDAY. 

"Captain Rogers was crying, boss. Jarvis found his vitals to be worrisome. There's no record as to why the Captain -"

"That's when," Steve says, purposefully brushing aside Tony's question and not allowing FRIDAY to answer. "I knew I had a choice. I could tell you or hide it, put walls around it. I chose not to feel it." 

Tony flops back down onto the bed, pulls Steve and drags him down against him. Feels the weight of him. How solid he is. Thinks about convergences and missed opportunities and what he would have done, said, thought. If he’d known. If Steve had told him.

"It's arrogant, isn't it?" Steve says after a minute. "To think we could save the universe just by being together." 

Maybe, Tony thinks. But they've both always been arrogant. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

"It's a little Disney, for sure," he says, and catches Steve's face in his hands when he ducks down to laugh. "But all signs point to it being the case. It's worth a shot, isn't it, Cap?  _ Together. _ "

"It's worth a shot," Steve repeats. 

"Tell me," Tony says, between kisses. "And if I don't listen, keep telling me. If you survive it. If you can. Tell me until I listen." 

The sun has gone down, but Tony can still see how blue Steve's eyes are, even in the dark, and there are a thousand stars in them. Either he'll survive the gauntlet and they'll fix it together, or Steve will die, erase himself completely from the future, and Tony knows himself - better than he knows anything - and the pain of it will drive him forward. 

He hopes for one over the other. 

  



End file.
